Inbetweeners Movie continues stronghold of UK box office

The Inbetweeners Movie has remained
top of the UK box office charts for a third consecutive week – and has now become the third highest-grossing film of 2011.

Hanging in there: The Inbetweeners Movie is now the third biggest film of the year at the UK box office

The smash hit comedy, based on the Channel 4 show, took another £7m over the weekend, bringing its total gross to £34.9m since its release on August 17.

It has now overtaken blockbusters The Hangover Part II and Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to become the third highest-grossing film of 2011 – with only The King’s Speech and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part II making more at the UK box office.

Blockbuster sequel Rise of The Planet Of The Apes was the second biggest film of the week, taking just over £1m, while last weekend’s new release, the romantic comedy One Day, fell to third.

The Inbetweeners Movie easily continued its domination of the box office in a week when the big new releases failed to make much of an impact.

Not much bite: The horror comedy remake Fright Night, which stars David Tennant as a vampire expert, failed to make much box office impact (Picture: DreamWorks)

Horror remake Fright Night – which stars Colin Farrell and David Tennant – opened in seventh place, taking £680,543, while sci-fi shocker Apollo 18 was just behind in eighth position with a gross of £490,746.

The biggest new film of the week was the Bollywood musical Bodyguard – released in cinemas to coincide with the Muslim religious holiday Eid – which took an impressive £839,695 to land in fifth place at the box office.

In doing so, it scored the biggest ever opening for a Bollywood movie in the UK, even outgrossing The Inbetweeners in some regional cinemas.